Threading beads is a great activity for little fingers and inquisitive minds, as it helps develop fine motor skills and concentration. The problem is that most commercially available beads are only suitable from age 3+, even though the ability and desire to thread can start much earlier. This easy-to-make threading toy addresses that problem: it's safe as well as easy to handle for the smallest of hands. I first gave it to my son when he was about 18 months, though you could try it at any point between 16 and 24 months. Best of all, it only takes about 30 minutes to put together and uses mostly recycled materials.

First threading toyYou will need:a sturdy cardboard tube (an empty cling film or aluminium foil roll works best)a 30-40 cm long stick (wood, bamboo, plastic - any will do)thin, flat cardboard (e.g. an empty cereal box)parcel or gaffer tapewater-based paintsMethod:1. Using a bread knife, cut the cardboard tube into 1.5 cm wide rings.2. Using scissors, cut a circle with a wider diameter than the rings out of the flat cardboard.

3. Cut a slit into the flat circle, then attach about 5cm from the bottom of the stick with tape to make a handle.

4. Paint the rings.

That's it! When the paint on the rings has dried, this super-easy toy is ready for your toddler to play with. I presented this to the Bean in a little pot (made from an empty Pringles tube covered in salvaged wrapping paper), and he took to it straight away.

I don’t talk much about my experience of breastfeeding the Bean. I try not to think about it either, if I’m honest. It wasn’t a very positive experience, one I prefer not to dwell on.

However, this week is World Breastfeeding Week. By coincidence, I’ve also just spent a couple of days in the company of my friends back home, and their newborn babies. It’s brought back many memories of M as a newborn, including of him nursing. So perhaps this is a good opportunity to revisit my breastfeeding experience, a little for myself, but also in case other mums out there reading this find reassure, advice, a common ground. In case it helps them come to the realisation that, if breastfeeding is hard, or they don’t like it, or they find themselves reaching for formula, it doesn’t make them a bad mummy.

Before I go on, I want to make it clear that this is NOT an anti-breastfeeding post. Rather, this is an anti-oversimplifying-breastfeeding kinda post. A can-we-please-stop-putting-all-the-onus-on-mums post.

In a textbook situation, successful breastfeeding is supposed to go a little like this: mum has baby, baby gets a belly-full of precious colostrum in that magical first hour, then 2-3 days later mum’s milk comes in, they both flap a bit, but with some guidance for the nurses or health visitors they get the hang of the “technique”. Still having trouble? It just takes “practice”.

Or not. Since when is anything about parenting textbook, anyway?! There are so many things that can make breastfeeding much, much harder: mum being very ill from a traumatic labour, baby having tongue-tie. Or baby having reflux.

The Bean was a reflux baby. He’d feed and, despite my best efforts to prevent it, vomit most of it back up again within 60-90 minutes. And then he’d be starving again, less than two hours after I’d last fed him. He’d cry for hours because of the discomfort reflux brings with it, and often he could only fall asleep if I was massaging his poor belly.

Unfortunately for us, he was never diagnosed. I paid visit after visit to the paediatrician, but as he never had issues gaining weight the response was always either “it’s colic” or “you’re doing it wrong”. Wrong. My let-down was too fast so he was gulping in air. I was feeding him too much foremilk. I’d encouraged him to purse his lips, so he was gulping in more air. I was feeding him too often. I needed to “practice” and improve my “technique”.

It was soul-destroying. I felt like I was permanently either breastfeeding or rocking a screaming baby. Never sleeping. I started letting Mr P&P give him bottles of expressed milk, and then formula, to take off the pressure.

The Bean loved the bottles. Why wouldn’t he? He got the milk, lots of it, and fast. He got cuddles from whoever was feeding him. He started to dislike breastfeeding too, fussing and crying every time. At six months we switched to formula completely, and I never got the impression he missed it. At about seven months he outgrew his reflux. And that was that. Hardly textbook, is it.

I’m aware that my breastfeeding issues were not just about breastfeeding. In failing to diagnose the Bean’s reflux, and help us to manage it, the doctors failed us. However, I do think that this failure of theirs is part of a larger problem: successful breastfeeding does not just depend on the mum.

Instead, successful breastfeeding depends on all sorts of things: positive involvement from the medical profession, access to breastfeeding counsellors, wider support for parents with newborn babies. I hope that, if there is anything World Breastfeeding Week achieves, it's these things. And I know I'm not alone in thinking this.

I felt negative about my breastfeeding experience for a long time. I’d feel pangs of regret and guilt every time I saw anything that promoted breastfeeding: I’d failed at that bit.

Of course, I didn’t fail. I did the best I could, which was certainly good enough. So really, when I think back to that period now, all I want to take away from it is:

a) Living with reflux is sh*t, so stamp your foot until you get the help you need. And if you can’t, and it all goes pear-shaped, it’s not your fault.

b) The Bean got fed. He loved (loves!) his milk. As this post-feed photo attests to. I don’t even remember whether he’d had a bottle of expressed milk or formula, but it doesn’t really matter, does it?

And perhaps also:

c) The word ‘colic’ should be banned from the dictionary of every medical professional out there...

1. Increasingly cautious. If you don’t know it, you ain’t doing, touching or eating it. Unless of course it looks really dirty and inappropriate, because that will freak mum out.2. Kissy kissy mwah. Though it comes in waves and most definitely on your terms, you give cuddles and kisses with such love and abandon that I want to bottle them all up for a lonely day. Even the snot-smeared ones.

3. Chatterbox. So you ended up with crazy parents who speak different languages, and who had you in a country where they speak a different language still. Anyone would forgive you if you chose to maintain a dignified and pointed silence, but no, you’ve got it sussed: choose the easiest word in each language, and wait until the rest of us catch on.

4. Ravenous. Especially when there is pasta involved. Especially especially when it’s pasta with a good, smeary sauce.

5. Contradictory, in a way that only toddlers can be. Woe betide anyone who tries to do up the buckle of your buggy or wipe your face for you, and yet you can’t bear to be alone. Can’t cope with the thought of sleeping without us, of one of us being here and the other not. And I can’t blame you, my love. 6. So, so funny. When Mama hits the “skype” button, the “clown” button is set off on you. You dance, you holler, you pretend to be shy, and then start all over again. You find funnies in places I’d never have looked and you know what? I’m glad you pointed them out. 7. Worldly. For better or worse, my child, we’re on an adventure together. We’re here now and goodness knows where we will be next, but somehow I think you’ll take it in your stride. 8. Broom-fanatic. What, what is it about brooms? Never mind, you have as many as you like, especially if it means we can finally get your hair cut.

9. Straight-haired blondie. With a Daddy who the Italians think is so dark he could be Sicilian. With two parents who probably keep Frizz-Ease in business double-handedly. Who’d have thought? 10. Tonguetied when it matters. There are so many things going on in your little head that I can’t fathom, though you try so hard to explain. Your doll has a mysterious “ouchie”, you say “grandma” 50 times a day. Do you have an ouchie? Do you want to know where grandma is? I’m sorry you have so many worries, my dear, and I’m even more sorry that we are not yet on a wavelength where what I say to you makes sense, and vice versa. 11. Delightfully bonkers. You hop, skip and dance to your own tune all day long, even, no especially, when it’s time to go to bed. 12. Marvelously messy. I know you know, and you know I know you know, how to use cutlery. But it doesn’t mean you’re going to when you can shovel so much faster with your hands or, better still, just hoover straight off the plate.

13. Always, ALWAYS on the move. Crawling at six months, walking at twelve, you were never going to be one for quiet sitting still. Tough sometimes, just sometimes, you grant 5 dozy minutes with a book or a video, and I sneak in more cuddles until you next go stomping off.

14. Utterly determined. You know EXACTLY what you want, and won’t stop at anything until you get it. And on the rare occasion that you don’t, your cries are raw, epic, heart breaking.

15. Selective. Not even the cuddliest teddy bear or the softest lovey can capture your attention for long, but then we found the companion for you: a little boy doll. And there you are, often found cuddling him, putting his to bed, offering him to one of us for a kiss.

16. Mine. In you I see my quiet concentration, deft little fingers manipulating a new and interesting material. I also see my reservedness - though not exactly shy, you like to observe before you engage. 17. Your daddy’s. In you I see your daddy’s limitless curiosity - you must turn everything upside-down and inside-out, just to see how it works. Your affection towards and consideration for others, even this early on, is also a lovely piece of him. 18. Entirely you. There are so many things we are yet to find out about you, what you like, what inspires you, what moves your little heart and mind. As we head ever closer to the Twos, your Stare tells me there will be days on which you and I clatter and clash. It makes me nervous, I won’t lie, but most of all I look forward to discovering even more versions of You.